Battle of Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a major naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars that occurred at Cape Trafalgar, off the coast of Cadiz, Spain. The combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 41 ships under Pierre-Charles Villeneuve and Federico Gravina was attacked by a British fleet of 33 ships under Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and Cuthbert Collingwood as it attempted to retreat to Naples, and the larger Franco-Spanish fleet was forced to do battle with the British. Nelson decided to cut the opposing line in three, and his squadrons created an unorthodox order of battle, a part of Nelson's "pell-mell" strategy. Although the Franco-Spanish fleet had larger ships than Nelson, including the monstrous Santisima Trinidad, the British outmaneuvered the French and Spanish ships and managed to capture 21 of the 41 allied ships; one was destroyed. Nelson was killed on the deck of HMS Victory by a French sniper on the ship Redoubtable during the battle, and the Spanish admiral Federico Gravina was mortally wounded during the battle. Villeneuve would be captured aboard his flagship towards the end of the battle, and the battered Franco-Spanish fleet limped back to Cadiz. The battle was one of the most important naval battles in history, as it confirmed the Royal Navy's control of the seas until the early 1900s and ruined Napoleon I's hopes of launching a cross-channel invasion of England.